


got my blood up in their veins

by haemophilus



Series: [secondary characters] [3]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, It's Always Sunny Taken Way Too Seriously, Non-Explicit, Other, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 07:02:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10566084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haemophilus/pseuds/haemophilus
Summary: The life and times of Margaret McPoyle.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so this happened. Had a friend go 'I've never seen a fic for Margaret McPoyle' and I was like 'me neither' and then the idea sat in my head and here we are. Deep in the garbage pile that is the McPoyles.
> 
> Content warning for incest, though there is no sex at all, head injuries, fist fights, stabbing, chronic injury involving deafness, and just general McPoyle weirdness.
> 
> Title from 'Family' by Mother Mother.

**0.**

Margaret was a family name passed down through the generations as the McPoyles kept their bloodline pure through intermarriage and, later, domestic partnerships. There were many family names to choose from since their history was well-documented. Most of them were biblical – Ruth, Mary, Delilah. However, Margaret meant something special. The first matriarch to decide to keep the bloodline clean was named Margaret; it was reserved only for the most precious of the McPoyle children. On August 1, 1979, Margaret McPoyle was born prematurely, but a living, breathing baby girl.

Nobody had expected Margaret to live through her mother’s complicated pregnancy, and her premature birth was breech with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. Margaret spent the first few days of her life in a heated respirator. When the doctors announced that she could come home, her parents wept with joy. Her brothers, one and two-years old, did not understand, but they cried also.

In the McPoyle bloodline, girls were cherished far more than boys. It was they who insisted on keeping the bloodline clean generation after generation, and they who bore the children. Margaret McPoyle was the first girl of her generation. Someday, she too would choose whether or not to demand a clean bloodline.

The McPoyles, purists as they were, understood the linguistic meaning behind every name in their clan. Margaret wasn’t just special because she was the first matriarch: the name, in its historical translation, meant ‘pearl.’ One day, after the previous matriarch’s death, Margaret would inherit the matriarchal pearls passed down from generation to generation.

All in all, she had a lot to live up to in the eyes of her family. However, by the time her parents had taken her home, she had already wrestled with death itself and won.

Not bad, all things considered, for a four-day old girl.

**7.**

Liam, Ryan, and Margaret were playing keep-away on the asphalt basketball court, switching between who would take the sides and who would take the middle. Liam and Ryan were teasing her with huge grins on their faces, and all of them were laughing. Then, a roaming pack of teenage boys entered the court. A chill fell over their game as the clear leader of the pack smirked.

“Hey look guys,” he said. “The McPoyle kids have decided to come outside and play.”

Liam moved to stand protectively in front of Margaret.

“Yeah. Cos this playground belongs to everyone,” he said.

The leader laughed. “Jesus. You guys are all so pissy. Must be from all the inbreeding.”

Margaret must have had a puzzled look on her face, because the leader continued, “Oh man. Does she not know? That’s hilarious.”

“Leave her alone!” cried Ryan.

“She’s only seven years old, asshole!” said Liam.

The whole group laughed now. “She’s gotta find out sometime that your whole family fucks each other.”

“There is nothing wrong about wanting to keep the McPoyle bloodline pure,” said Liam. His anger was cold now in a way Margaret had never heard it before.

“It has made us tough and strong!” said Ryan.

“Oh has it now?” said the leader. “Well then, I guess you’ll have no problem beating me in a fight.”

“None at all,” said Ryan.

Margaret grabbed his wrist. “Ryan, he’s so much bigger than you.”

“I have to do it,” he said. “For us.”

He pulled his wrist out of her hand, and walked forward to the bully, fist clenched. The bully cracked his knuckles.

“This should be easy,” he said. In an instant, he punched Ryan in the jaw. Ryan’s nose bled, and he fell to the ground crying.

Then, all hell broke loose.

Liam ran towards the bully, and pulled out a pocket knife. He stabbed the leader in the cheek and cried, “That’s what you get for messing with the McPoyles, bitch!”

The boy’s screams echoed across the court. He yanked the knife out of his cheek, and landed a punch square in Liam’s gut. When Liam was on the ground, he took him by the shoulders, and slammed him against the pavement.

“You think you can stab me and get away with it, you incestuous freak of nature? I will end you!” he screamed.

Margaret had no choice. She rushed forward to try to help him.

“Please, don’t hurt him!” she cried as she ran.

“Watch out!” screamed Liam. It was too late. Margaret got in the way of a misdirected punch, and her tiny body collapsed like a rag doll. Distantly, she heard a crunch of bone moments before she hit the pavement and blacked out.

The doctors said, later, that she was lucky to be alive. She was unable to hear the good news.

**16.**

It was a sacred law that the McPoyles were not allowed to court before the age of sixteen. They were blood purists, not animals, and romance or sex inside or outside of the bloodline was punished before a McPoyle was of age. Margaret had, of course, disobeyed this rule by experimenting with some boys outside of the bloodline prior to being of age. However, romantically, she only had eyes for two people in the world: her beloved brothers.

As prom approached her junior year of high school, Margaret’s anxiety about their returned feelings grew. Neither of them had approached her for courtship, even though she had been sure that they would. However, three weeks before prom, Liam and Ryan left a note on her nightstand while she was at cello practice.

_Meet us at Burger King at six-o-clock._

Margaret clapped her hands when she saw it, and immediately ran to the bathroom to check if her hair looked ok in the mirror. She experimented with it down or tied back, and settled on a half-ponytail. Then, she raced out of the house, and walked to Burger King as fast as she could. When she got into the restaurant, she found her brothers at a table, beaming. On the table was a huge tray of fries, chicken fingers, and a cup with ‘milk’ written on it. On the container of fries, a sticky note said, “Will you, Margaret McPoyle, future matriarch and beloved sister, go to prom with us?”

Tears welled up in Margaret’s eyes as her head nodded with an emphatic, ‘Yes.’

**32.**

Margaret’s predecessor to the McPoyle matriarchy died at the ripe old age of 54 to a genetic disease causing heart arrhythmias. At the wake, Margaret’s mother clasped the pearls around her neck, and wiped a tear from her eye. Around the room, her family looked at her with expectant faces. It was time for Margaret to make her decision. She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, and handed it off to Liam. His face burst into a grin, and he wiped some of the freely flowing tears off his face. He grasped Margaret’s hand, and raised it up in preparation for a rallying cry.

“The McPoyle bloodline shall stay pure. McPoyles forever!” he cried.

The room burst into joyous applause. Liam turned towards Margaret, tilted her chin up towards his face, and kissed her full and deep. Margaret fell into it with a sigh.

**55.**

Margaret succumbed to a heart arrhythmia when she was 55 years old. Mere hours before her death, her last companions were Liam and Ryan. They kissed her face, and held her hand as she went in and out of consciousness. In her last moments of consciousness, Liam wrote feverishly on a piece of paper, and held it up to her face.

_McPoyles forever?_

Margaret concentrated harder than she had in 48 years to, just this once, find her voice. Finally, miraculously, it came.

“Always,” she breathed.

The last thing Margaret felt before she died was Liam and Ryan’s chaste kisses on her forehead and cheek. Then, she was gone.

 

 


End file.
